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Bill masks vindictive intentions

Re: Government backs bill aimed at masked protesters, May 7

This week the Harper government party threw its support behind Bill C-309 (Preventing Persons from Concealing Their Identity during Riots and Unlawful Assemblies Act) put forward by Wildrose MP Blake Richards. Owing to this support, Bill C-309 will almost certainly become law. But like so many recent Conservative initiatives, the bill is vindictive and manipulative.

Riding a public wave of unease after the riots in Vancouver and those in the U.K. in the summer of 2011, Richards drafted the bill in order to add ammunition to the police toolkit to respond to public assemblies. The bill aims to increase the punitive capacities of the law when reacting to people participating in the already illegal acts of rioting and unlawful assembly.

Let’s be clear: the deplorable behaviour of rioters in Vancouver was the act of vandals that should be punished. The problem, however, is the potential for this proposed amendment to the Criminal Code to be used in situations of legitimate protest, given the subjective criteria for determining riots and unlawful assemblies.

At the most basic level, a law of this nature will increase the risk of participating in even the most docile of events because all emotion-laden public gatherings, even of the most peacefully minded participants, hold the potential for violence.

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There are many good reasons why people wear masks during public gatherings. To begin with, mask-wearing is a long-standing method of symbolic expression and political solidarity. Most often mask-wearing is innocuous and involves no risk to public safety such as when participants in Free the Children’s Vow of Silence Campaign cover their mouths with a small mask to symbolize the silencing of children or when Greenpeace activists don orangutan masks to publicize the destruction of rainforests. But Bill C-309 has the potential to criminalize those harmless acts.

Global protests, such as the G20 meeting in Toronto in 2010 have also drawn our attention to the fact that as the tension between police and protesters has risen in recent decades even the most peaceful protesters have been subjected to the use of pepper spray. In these instances, protective masks have become a commonly used method of protecting one’s physical well-being while expressing political views. Bill C-309 would almost certainly be used in these circumstances.

But there is also a question of political privacy and minimizing personal risk; for the same reason that we uphold the right of citizens to keep their vote private for professional and personal reasons, many people who engage in political dissent are not eager to publicize their political views. Canada’s legendary Cold War defector, Igor Gouzenko wore a hood covering his entire head during public appearances until his death in order to protect his family from the ramifications of his political choices.

Bill C-309 has very real consequences for Canadian civil liberties. At present, the bill conflates violent behaviour with mask wearing; the problem is that not all people wearing masks are intent on committing violent acts.

As a historical precedent, Britain’s Black Act of 1723 illustrates the dangers associated with such legislation. The Black Act was first designed to deal with poaching on private land. Being found in a park or on private property with a weapon and a disguised or blackened face could mean death by hanging.

The act became notorious however, because over time it was extended to cover an increasing number of behaviours, most of which involved the poor, including protest. As the historian E.P. Thompson wrote, the act “signalled the onset of the flood-tide of 18th century retributive justice.” Increasingly impossible to rationalize, the act was repealed in 1827. In as much as a democracy relies on a range of modes of engagement and expression, a watchful citizenry cannot leave undue powers in the hands of the police to decide when and how political assemblies will have their say.

By criminalizing legitimate political dissent, we can expect to achieve two things. First, we undermine a form of political action that is increasingly a favourite form of engagement among youth under 25. In an era where we decry the political apathy of youth, this is deplorable.

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Second, we create an opportunity for greater extremism. For instance, the Black Bloc tactics — dressing in black, covering one’s head and face and causing targeted property damage during protests — have become an international phenomenon. The Black Bloc only gained momentum and notoriety after the German government banned masks in the mid-1980s as part of an effort to quash social movements.

News coverage treats the Black Bloc as a group of individuals, but more importantly it is an aesthetic and a credo symbolizing reactionary politics that escalates the tension between participants and police.

Police already possess the necessary power to deal with vandalism and violence. Make no mistake, this bill is not about crime. It is another attempt in a long line of conservative efforts to target the heart of our democratic rights to expression and to freedom of assembly.

Kathleen Rodgers and Willow Scobie, Department of Sociology, University of Ottawa

The Harper government is backing a back-bencher’s bill that would provide harsh penalties for protesters who wear masks at a demonstration. In considering this bill, I hope that MPs recognize that many protesters wear masks to protect themselves from tear gas.

I would also hope that, if this draconian measure should become law, it will apply equally to police officers who conceal their identities when policing demonstrations.

This practice by many members of the Toronto Police Service was much in evidence and well-recorded in Star photos taken at demonstrations against the G20 conference.

Bill Howes, Toronto

Does this mean the police can’t wear shields to conceal their identities as well? Or are they to protect their eyes? Maybe protesters should wear plastic face shields as well — tinted ones. Last time I checked, a plastic face shield does not a mask make. Protects the eyes though.

Richard Kadziewicz, Scarborough

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announces that anonymous protesting leads to, “Destructive and reckless behaviour [which] damages communities and should not be tolerated.” Interesting, when you compare this to certain members of Toronto’s police force at the G20 summit, who executed their “duties” with faces hidden by masks, adorning shirts with no ID badges.

“Quelle difference,” indeed.

Edward P. Swynar, Newcastle

I applaud Stephen Harper Inc. for backing Conservative backbencher Blake Richards’ private member’s bill giving police the power to arrest anyone hiding their identity during a riot or unlawful assembly. There must be a clampdown on anarchists who disrupt peaceful protests.

But what about police officers who hide their identity while disrupting protests as was done during the June 2010 G20 Toronto summit? Or will this be yet another Harper Inc. case of “do as I say not as I do”?

Alan Pellettier, Scarborough

In speaking of the proposed new Conservative bill to make it illegal for protesters to wear a face-mask (though police who beat such protesters cover up their name plates), Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said, “Destructive and reckless behaviour damages communities and should not be tolerated.”

He’s just summed up his government’s daily effect on this country since coming to power. And he’s right — their behaviour damages communities and should not be tolerated.

Peter Dick, Toronto

I suspect the government will be able to count on broad support for this bill assuming: a) it only targets those masked protesters caught committing acts of violence; and b) it also deals with police officers who remove or cover their own identification tags during demonstrations.

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